Business directory services provide users with lists or names of businesses in a specified category or location. A user can request a business of a particular type in a particular city and receive a listing of all available businesses of that type. Such services are sometimes referred to as Yellow Page services. Existing directory services have different interfaces and functionality: some allow searching by partial or exact business name, within a city, or by category, or a combination of the three. A smaller set of service providers allow searching by name and category within a specified distance from an addressable location. An addressable location is a uniquely identified geographical point such as, for example, a street address or a uniquely identified point of interest, or named administrative areas such as cities or postal codes.
There are several standard nomenclatures for categorization and classification of businesses. Examples of such standards are the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS), which replaces the SIC system, and Universal Standard Products and Services Classification created by the Electronic Commerce Code Management Association (ECCMA). In addition, some directory service providers create custom nomenclatures and protocols.
Business directory services are accessed by users from computers or other electronic access devices, such as, for example, cellular phones enabled for web browsing. If not satisfied with results of the first query, a user can submit another query, supplying original parameters as well as additional restrictions. This narrowing of search, referred to as “drilling down,” is typically limited to the original category or subcategory. For example, if the user is looking for a car dealership within a certain distance of a given location, in a process of drilling down, the user may be able to narrow the allowed distance but not add additional markers or specifications for the search.